Local author pens climate-change book

Eric Grimsrud can make people listen when the topic is climate change.

A resident of Creston, Grimsrud holds a doctorate in analytical chemistry. Through his research work, he had a ringside seat in an earlier environmental controversy — ozone depletion from chlorofluorocarbons — that gave him insight into today’s global warming debate.

“It’s difficult to get science across to the public,” Grimsrud said. “I learned a bit about getting a serious environmental threat to be recognized.”

During his 29-year teaching career at Montana State University, he worked with a research group that first detected several other halogenated compounds contributing to ozone depletion and global warming. Since retiring from full-time employment in 2006, he has worked to increase public understanding of what he terms anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming.

 With the birth of two grandchildren, Grimsrud became more committed than ever to convincing the public that this threat is real. His mission evolved into a book, “Thoughts of a Scientist, Citizen, and Grandpa on Climate Change.”

He dedicated it to Charlie and Kate, hoping to make an impact on their futures.

“I’m really sure the second half of their lives will be very problematic because of global warming — that’s what the science tells me,” Grimsrud said. “The science is straightforward. I have no doubt about what’s happening.”

Why another book on global warming?

He said his idea was to fit all the pieces together for people who know a little about the subject but remain undecided about the threat. Grimsrud subtitled the book “Bridging the Gap between Scientific and Public Opinion” as he responds to public views with scientific research.

“I don’t use any equations or graphs,” he said. “In this book, I wanted to have a conversation about the issue, just discuss several aspects of the problem.”

His book consolidates a series of essays and guest columns he wrote to make clear to nonscientists why scientists foresee a potential atmospheric calamity unless people make changes in their lifestyles to reduce greenhouse gases.

To answer people who say scientific opinion remains divided, he wrote chapter four, laying out the large plurality of leading scientific organizations sounding the alarm. He said people who have spent their careers researching and publishing papers in this field consider man-caused global warming an urgent problem.

“If you consider this, the scientific community is not divided,” he said. “It’s very homogeneous.”

Grimsrud says that some scientists outside this group remain unconvinced, but points out that this happens with every issue. 

Locally, Ed Berry, an atmospheric physicist who also holds a doctorate, argues that the science of global warming is wrong.

Grimsrud maintains that Berry represents a small minority of opinion. He said that the consensus backing up man-caused global warming is so strong that top scientific organizations have not even issued minority reports.

For those interested in learning why, Grimsrud tapped his 29 years of teaching expertise to write an easy-to-understand primer of concepts. His wife, Kathy, a retired elementary school teacher, served as his wordsmith and non-technical advisor.

“I was his guinea pig,” she said. “I really don’t have a background in science.”

According to Grimsrud, scientists determined the Earth was warming over the last century by measuring changes in temperatures around the globe. He said few dispute the warming but many argue over the source — is it natural or man-caused?

In his book, Grimsrud outlines how actions of man have an impact on the atmosphere that he describes as a thin layer of gas that clings tightly to the surface of the earth.

It’s made up of 80 percent nitrogen, the rest oxygen and a small percentage of minor components. While those other components remain low, Grimsrud said they play a critical role in keeping the surface of earth favorable to plant and animal life.

“People don’t realize how delicate the balance is,” he said. “Life evolved under those conditions.”

He draws on his experience studying chlorofluorocarbons, known to most as Freon, used in aerosol spray cans and air conditioners. In 1974, Grimsrud was

one of the pioneers working at Washington State University analyzing chlorofluorocarbons with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

His group’s measurements of air samples, using a Lear jet out of Pullman, Wash., confirmed new theories of the breakdown of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Many denied the potential problems of Freon until research from Antarctica in 1985.

“The hole in the ozone was the smoking gun” that galvanized action to reduce and ban chlorofluorocarbons, Grimsrud said.

Grimsrud said the two major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide and methane — now have increased 30 and 150 percent, respectively, in 160 years. These gases interfere with the planet’s cooling mechanisms by absorbing infrared radiation emitted by the Earth.

According to his book, the carbon dioxide comes mainly from fossil fuels but the methane source is less clear. Some agricultural practices are possible sources or a feedback mechanism where global warming increases natural source emissions from wetlands, permafrost and seabed deposits in the Arctic Ocean.

The latter is a potentially dire scenario.

“It could cause a runaway greenhouse effect,” Grimsrud said, with one increasing the other in a nonstop chain reaction.

His book responds to many questions, such as how natural warming that ended the ice ages differs from today’s warming.

For a detailed discussion of the basics and his book, consult his Web site, www.ericgrimsrud.com

He explains the conversion of inert geologic carbon fossil fuels to active biological carbon such as carbon dioxide. He makes an interesting analogy.

“Just as you get warmer when you put on a heavier coat, the Earth also gets warmer as extra BC and atmospheric C02 are made by the combustion of fossil fuels,” he says.

His book sells for $12.95 from his Web site, locally from Borders book store and other Internet book sites.

In his final chapters, Grimsrud offers some hope for the future.

Because of inertia, he said the heating of land and oceans takes time. He hopes citizens will get behind changes such as energy conservation, support research in energy innovation and use alternatives to fossil fuels such wind and solar.

“I don’t put a smiley face on it,” he said. “Fossil fuels are a cheap source of energy. Our lifestyle is so fossil-fuel driven.”

He and his wife have taken a first step with the installation of 30 solar panels on their own house last summer. They heat with a carbon-neutral pellet stove and close off a large portion of their house in cold months to cut down their energy use.

Grimsrud doesn’t support the legislation known as cap and trade as an answer to global warming and does advocate pursuing fourth generation (highly efficient) nuclear power plants as part of the solution.

He pans cap-and-trade legislation as too much business as usual with special interests.

Grimsrud said a straight tax on fossil fuel would work with the proviso that the revenue goes back to the public as a dividend, reimbursing them for using more expensive non-fossil fuel sources of energy.

“This has the advantage of changing public behavior,” he said. “It all goes back to the public and leaves the special interests out of the loop.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.